Bye Bye, Pie!

Pour some sugar on me

I felt a little headachy when I woke up today, AND THAT ANNOYS ME, since I'm, you know, desugaring and all. In fact, I may have to abort the eat-no-sugar plan for now.

I KNOW. But listen. After paying my delightful COBRA, and if you don't pay him he'll slither up and bite you. BAHAHAHAHAHAHAA. Anyway, after paying my COBRA and then paying H&R Block $391 to tell me I owe money in taxes, it turns out I'm tapped out. And I don't get another freelance check till the 29th. Which means I have to default to my poor-person grocery shopping. Eating the sugarless stuff is kind of expensive.

I don't know. I'll try my best to buy good groceries. I mean, I won't buy a 12-pack of Twinkies and call it poor-person food. But tons of vegetables and bags of pistachios are not going to happen this shopping trip. And bread WILL be included, as will pasta. And brown rice. I think I'm allowed to have small amounts of brown rice anyway.

Look. I've started the first three paragraphs of this with "I." Nice. Anyway, is there anyone cook-y out there who can think of what I can eat, cheap, that is sans sugar or bad-for-you carbohydrates?

The REASON I think I have a headache today is I made chicken breasts last night and I put garlic salt on them and I wonder if that has MSG. I looked at the container before I shook it all night long, but it said nothing, which lead me to tell myself, "Maybe all it has is garlic and salt!" Oh, the lies we tell ourselves. And just try Googling "Does garlic salt have MSG in it." You will find nothing helpful except hysterical people talking about how bad MSG is. I ALREADY KNOW THAT. THANK YOUUUUU, HYSTERICAL PERSONNNNNN.

I think the other reason I am headachy is because I did freelance work all night last night, and sometimes proofreading all day then proofreading at night can, you know, cause a headache. All this to say it's not an INTOLERABLE one, and I am likely to live, it's just irritating.

The other important thing I need to say is the other day, I dropped the lid of my deodorant into the toilet, which lead to me throwing that lid out, which then lead to the deodorant I had drying up and me needing to get new stuff. I was in the deodorant aisle at the store--and I adore it when people spell it "isle"--when this very pretty woman who was not Julia Roberts thank god came up and put some Secret in her cart, and it was one of the fancy scents, and could you please tell me when it was that Secret stopped just having the one scent in the light-blue roll-on bottle that my grandmother used till she took her last breath and started making every scent and color on the planet?

Why do we need 72 scents? "Oh, I need to smell like Ooo-laa-laa Lavender!" "Oh, not me. If I don't smell like a Serene Citrus, I'm toast."

The point is, I totally just copied the pretty girl, thinking if I use her deodorant scent I would magically get pretty too. And now I'm sitting here smelling like a red Life Saver and I want to kill myself. But looking pretty doing it!

Anyway, I have to go. I DO have to say somehow I LOOK better since being sugar-free. I caught a glimpse of myself in the mirror yesterday (I act like that was a total mistake. Like I'm not constantly in a mirror pecking at my own reflection like a parakeet) and I was all heyyyyy! What'chu doin' later? Like I wasn't just gonna be stuck with myself. "Well, I'll be with YOU, canary idiot."

Okay. So let me know, will ya? About what I can buy. If you're into that sort of healthy cheap groceries thing. If you're like me and the Chinese delivery guy knows your sign, maybe today would be the day to leave a "What a lovely post, June." comment. A "Gee, I wish I were pretty like you, June." comment. A "Nice budgie, June!" comment. You get the idea.

Mostly food. That's what this one is about. Food. I'm kind of like Tallulah right now. You gots food?

Since yesterday I was so busy showering you with more pictures of your own selves, I didn't get a chance to tell you the myriad things that're new, and by "myriad" I mean two.

First of all, Ned has insisted that "we" need to not spend so much money going out, and by "we" he means "Ned," since as I told you before, he mostly pays for everything because he is the boy and he is nice and oh, right, he has a job.

I know I sort of technically have a fake job, but I also not-at-all-technically am paying $3,000,000 a month on COBRA. And I don't even LIKE snakes. So what I'm saying is, Ned's usually the pay-for-er. How do you feel about that? About the boy paying? I have been out with both: boys who always pay and boys who want you to pay half the time. What say you about that?

Anyway, we go out to eat a LOT, and Ned said "we" have to be more responsible about it, and I said that's fine with me. I just like being with Ned, and HE'S the one who "goddammit"s over food. And remembers what he ordered at a restaurant eight months later. "Remember last time we came here? And I got the soup?"

"No."

The point is, on Saturday night Ned and I cooked at his house, and by "Ned and I" I mean mostly I sat in his dining area and watched him do things in the kitchen. IN MY DEFENSE, I offered to help but he had a rhythm, going, there. The rhythm was frenetic and panicked, but it was a rhythm nonetheless.

My name is June. And I'm a help in the kitchen. Hiiii, June.

We were having mahi mahi, and this butternut squash he mixed with garlic and some other tasty stuff, and asparagus and some other healthy items I can't remember right now but what I DO know is on the way to Ned's house I called my pal Hulk, who said, "There is nothing you just told me that is something I'd eat."

Recently, on a date, Hulk was given his choice of sides: green beans, broccoli (which he called, "What's the stuff that looks like little green trees?") and mashed potatoes. He got double mashed potatoes. There's nothing that tells your date "I care about my health" more than double mashed potatoes.

You know what sounds delicious right now? Mashed potatoes. Which leads me to my next subject but I'm not done about Ned and our cooking.

We grilled the mahi and its mahi outside, and why do you have to say "mahi" twice? If you just say it once does it mean something totally different? The point is, we ("we") (pfft) put in an enormous amount of work for something we consumed in eight seconds. Because we were both starving to death by the time we finally ("we") finished all that cooking. "This was okay, but it wasn't goddammit good," Ned complained. Then he said he was still hungry.

So we did what any normal people would do. We went to the dessert place, where I got that coconut sour cream cake I talked about yesterday.

WHICH LEADS ME TO MY NEXT TOPIC, finally. Remember how I said I needed to begin Project Emaciated for my high school reunion in July? Have you noticed it's February? And I'm still Lulu on Hee-Haw, and don't you wish with all the fiber in your BEING that I'd think of another, you know, curvaceous chick? I'm Susanne Sugarbaker. There we go.

So this weekend I found an app called Lose It! with an exclamation point, like it's Lose It the Musical, and you put in there any activity you do (gardening burns more calories than you think) (sex is only 64 calories every half hour, and I really need to get into treadmill sex or something if that's the case because HELLO COCONUT SOUR CREAM CAKE) and every bite you eat (turns out coconut sour cream coffee cake is caloric) and then it tells you how many calories under or over you are for the day.

You know what's annoying? Trying to enjoy popcorn at the movies (we saw a depressing French film called Rust and Bone and JUST ONCE I'd like to leave a movie with Ned where I don't feel shaky and drained) ("I like movies that make you FEEL things," said Ned. "What about feeling happy? That's a thing," I said) knowing you're gonna have to go tell it to your app after. And you can just FEEL the app's disapproval. "Boy oh BOY, June. That's real caloric {pursed lips}." Somehow, the app sounds exactly like my mother.

And that is why I am writing to you while I am starving to death, because I fear the app, and I guess I can comfort myself with the part where at least I know Ned won't suggest we go out and eat nachos, because we're being responsible.

June and her kwashiorkor, out.

NedKitty not give two chits what Joon do. Fattie.

Thirty effing ith

I wish I could begin to tell you how happy it makes me to announce I am DONE WITH ALL FREELANCE WORK as of 10 minutes ago. Aaaaand I finally got the certificates and stuff from our fine U.S. government that will allow that Polish company to finally pay me.

Does anyone remember all fall, when I did freelance work for a company out of Poland? Yeah. Still haven't gotten paid yet. It's not their fault--I had to do some stuff so I wouldn't get taxed there as well as here, and my, what efficient, unfrustrating dealings I had with the IRS and so on.

Anyway it all got straightened out and yay. Insert Polish joke here.

So now that THAT'S finally ended and all I have to do is sit here and wait for the cash money to roll in, I get to obsess about my weight. I just found out my class reunion, my

THIRTY EFFING ITH REUNION

is happening in July. Because I am youthful, is what I am. The bloom is so totally on this rose. Mmm-hmm. My point is, I must FIGHT TIME and show up at that thing looking 18 and healthy and lovely and painfully, scarily thin. My goal weight is, "Has June been ill?"

So what say you to good diet plans? Ned said, "Why don't you try the eat less/exercise more diet?" I asked Ned why he doesn't try to go-fuck-yourself diet.

I was thinking of getting that Fitness Pal app, only because Richard on the Howard Stern Show lost weight with it, and it is sad, really, how often Howard Stern and his people affect my decision-making.

...I just spent 80 hours trying to find you the YouTube clip from Arthur, where a guy says, "I never drink. I think drinking affects your decision-making." And Arthur says, "You could be right. I can't decide."

Really, way too much of my life is spent quoting Arthur.

Okay, so yeah. Diet suggestions, please. I mean, no matter what I do to lose weight will probably work, given my current strict regime of fat, salt, caffeine and cuticles.

Before I go, and I know it makes you sad to see the back of my interesting head out THIS doorway, let's look at some more readers who sent in their photos, shall we? Cause we only have 90,000 to go.

Here is a small but intense photo of CBA. No one ever calls me small. But they WILL when I get on that DIET you recommend to me.

Funny in My Mind, who's been reading me forever. I helped her come up with that name. Because I love me. I like how I can take a picture of someone else and make it about me. Who can take a nothing day and suddenly make it all seem about her?

Becky, right, lives in my old neighborhood in LA. Envy. Have the envy.

Hazel has a blind cat named Lily. I KNOW. We are the same person.

Here's the Girl in the Red Shoes, who is not living up to her name, but who falls under the Disgustingly Pretty category of readers. Maybe all these hot chicks read me cause they identify. Maybe hot lava and Halloween candy are gonna fly out my ass, too.

Red Shoes mentioned her baby is 4 months because she knew I'd be all, "And here's her 17-year-old son." You know how I am. Four months. Ten years old. I can't tell.

Here's Donna in Australia. If you read me in 2008, and did not kill sell from boredom yet, you may recall she sent in a family portrait with her mom's floating head, and I was nice enough to superimpose self in said portrait. Cause love self. So bad. Oh, look. Another picture of someone else that I made about me.

Say, look what I found. heeeeee.....

Mostly Lurking Elizabeth is my people. Obvs.

Cash claims to love my blog, but I think Cash is full of shit.

Katie near Cleveland loves her dog, and I want you to know I am obsessed. LOOK AT HIMMMMMM.

Okay, you have no idea how many times I tried to make Alizabeth not sideways. Give up. She is in Seattle. Have also sat on that pig. Insert June-in-high-school joke here.

...Oh. It's right-side up now. Son of a...

Ericka says she no longer has photos of her without her children in them. They look pretty smug about that, don't they?

This California lurker says one day she's gonna send me two dollars. I WANT MY TWO DOLLARS!

Did anyone else love Better Off Dead?

Erin says she's NOT THE OTHER ERIN. Is anyone confused? Also, am dying over dalmatian child.

Cig in Arizona says she is a lurker. She is one of the pretty lurkers. Getting annoyed. PRETTY READERS NEED NOT APPLY. AM FEELING INADEQUATE.

Garden Girl! She has commented forever. Also very cute.

GODDAMMIT.

I mean, right? There is no need to say that Kerry from Oregon is not just my people, she just IS ME. So mad I do not own a photo of me doing just this. How shellfish of her. See what I did? See?

Yeah, I think we should end there. It will not get better than my soulmate Kerry. More pictures to come. Because wow, did ya'll all ever get into this project.

And don't forget my diet!! I have 25 weeks to lose 750 pounds. Is there a Moon Pie diet I don't know about?

The big reVEAL. Totally cracked self up with that one.

It's Wednesday night and I'm writing this now, because I have a screamingly busy day Thursday. Because I will be home not at all, really, I have to leave early tomorrow to take the dogs to daycare. In case anyone has NOT seen them at daycare on the webcam, look here.

Let me know if they're doing anything they oughtn't, like humping a Pom or picketing gay funerals. I guess really those terrible people don't picket gay funerals, do they? They picket soldiers' funerals because they hate gay people. Right? That makes no sense.

Anyway, so tonight I got home, worked out, did laundry, called my mother, and turned Ned down for a date. Does it really count as a "date" when you've been seeing someone for 11 months? The point is, Ned called awhile ago and wanted me to have a salmon salad with him at that restaurant he likes to go to for their, you know, salmon salads, but to tell you the truth I feel a little peckish. A little out of sorts. Maybe, you know, under the weather-ish.

Which I'm certain has nothing to do with the 39499493 things I ate at today's work Christmas party.

Look what someone did! They made little brownie Christmas trees with candy-cane stumps! How is it people have talents like these, and all I can do is throw frozen breakfast sandwiches in the oven and go, "HERE!"

Anyway. I had quiche. I had tortillas. I had 79 Christmas tree brownies. I had bacon. I had biscuits. There was fruit, too, but pfft.

Fruit.

Did I mention pfft?

Anyway, a few hours ago I started feeling NOT WELL and I'm hoping it's just from the tons of food. If I am getting another stomach thing Ima be PISSED. I mean, my last stomach thing was in early January, but CLOSE ENOUGH.

The other thing about today's party was ugly holiday sweaters were optional.

Here's Faithful Coworker Debb, the one who sent us all an email about the terrible things a margarita does to you right before everyone was going out for margaritas, and yet she is still somehow likeable. Anyway, this snowman getup does a lot for her figure. She is one of those small-waist flat-stomach beyotches in non-ugly-sweater life. Perhaps because she abstains from margaritas. Her license plate reads, I am not kidding, Hike and Bike, and I told her I was gonna get one with Sit and Eat on it.

I mean, it's too bad Faithful Coworker S forgot to bring an ugly sweater. Wow. I think this one kind of wins.

The nicest part of this getup is that her boyfriend has a matching one. No, seriously.

Look at annoying TinaDoris, managing to be appealing despite her sweater. Oh, and she has FRUIT.

Pfft.

See. I would TOTALLY WEAR THIS if I had it. Festive AND convenient. Just slap a candy cane on your head and IT'S CHRISTMAS!!

And byyyy the way, I am still being elfed. The udder cup was TOO OBVIOUS, and I figured out Jane West gave me that. Remember Jane West? We worked together at my LAST job, and then I came to THIS company and she stalked me over here. Anyway I knew it was her, I was UDDERLY sure, and then she came down and said things like, "I guess you took the bull by the horns and figured it out." And I said things like, "I have a beef with you. Are you my elf?"

We milked it for all it was worth.

Anyway, so udder cup, yes, but many of the gifts left on my desk this and last week were NOT from her, she swears, so my elf mystery continues. "What partridge?" is funny. The jellybeans are pear-flavored. See.

I guess that's all I have to tell you, so I will be off. Say, does anyone know any way to fix artificial Christmas trees that have drooping branches? I just GOT that tree. It's been up five Christmases. Which if you ask me isn't a lot. Remember when I first got it and I had the sinus infection? Fun. Living with a teacher was fun. And not at all sickening.

(I just looked at that post and realized it said nothing about my new Christmas tree. But, see, what I REMEMBER is being in bed and Marvin putting the tree together that night. Is what I remember. And if you keep scrolling through December 2008 you'll SEE my tree, back when the branches still popped UP and didn't droop down, and now I am sadly reminded of my bosoms.)

June. Hoping she feels perkier tomorrow.

In the kitchen with June and Ned (aka Do Not Try This at Home)

"There's a Christmas party in my building," said Ned. "It might just be a bunch of old ladies in Christmas sweaters, but I'd like to go," he said, because apparently Ned is into the elderly. I would love to say "present company excepted," but has anyone seen my Pond's Cold Cream? Perhaps it's next to my Gold Bond Medicated Powder.

I hope to never have to find out what Gold Bond Medicated Powder does for you.

Anyway, I popped a Doan's Pill and said I'd be there. "We, um, have to bring an appetizer," he warned.

See. Neither Ned nor I are what you'd call spectacular in the kitchen. Just this year he's started cooking for himself, in an attempt to be healthy, and he is often calling me with this right hand burned to a stump or from the ptomaine poisoning ward or whatever. There is TOTALLY a ptomaine poisoning ward. What do you mean?

For his birthday, I gave Ned the book How to Cook Everything, which I own and have used twice. He has actually used his, because it shows you how to, you know, cook everything. Because ask me how to soft-boil an egg. Ask me to blanch something. Although, really, does anyone know what that means? Does blanching mean to be old and slutty with something, like the Golden Girl?

Which brings us back to Ned's all-old-girls-all-the-time Xmas party he was so enamored with.

"We could make bruschetta," he said ambitiously, perusing the book. I mean, I was ready to have a fever for the flavor of a Pringle. What'd be wrong with a nice plate of Pringles? You know you'd eat them.

So at 4 p.m. yesterday, Ned and I met up at the grocery store. Between the two of us we had one tomato and half a thing of garlic that may or may not have been from the Pleistocene era. Sleestax love garlic.

What is sad about me is I have melded, you know, actual history with Land of the Lost.

Which brings me back to Ned and me at the grocery store.

"Where do they KEEP tomatoes?" I wondered, seeing as my trips to the grocery involve stampeding to the coffee and dog food aisles. Finally we found this whole section--did you guys know about this?--where there are bananas and green leafy things and even carrots not in a teeny bag. I just learned those teeny carrots I buy in the bag once a year when I decide to be a responsible eater--and apparently "responsible eater" involves letting teensy bags of carrots rot behind the pudding cups in your fridge--did not GROW that way. They are regular carrots some yahoo shaves down and sells.

Did you guys know about this?

So there they were, the tomatoes. "These are those antique tomatoes I told you about," said Ned, fingering these large sort of imperfect red fruits. The sign right next to him read, "Vintage tomatoes," but who was I to quibble? They also sell them on eBay, the antique tomatoes. "These belonged to my grandmother. She kept them with her through all of WWII."

Antique tomatoes.

My POINT is, and I hope you're sitting down, Ned could not just, you know, PICK a tomato. Dudes, he HANDLED every.single.one. of those antique tomatoes. "Do you, you know, realize you have a cold?" I said, having picked out a tomato IN MY MIND 70 feel-ups ago. Those tomatoes are gonna need to marry Ned to make honest fruit out of themselves.

"Do you know what you need to do when you bring home produce?" Ned asked a trifle testily. "You need to WASH it." He sniffed as he inspected that antique tomato like he was going to have it bronzed for posterity. Finally,

FINALLY

we got the perfect ultimate tomato, and I grabbed a garlic ("That's IT? You're just TAKING ONE without looking?" Ned was incredulous.) and we wandered over to the peppers. The instructions or whatever had said you could add a hot pepper "to taste." Do you have ANY idea how many DING DANG kinds of hot pepper there are? Where were we, Jalisco? What Southern person do you know who has ANY tolerance for the spicy food? I mean, they're less wimpy than Midwesterners, but not by much.

Forty-six centuries later, and boy were those knights cute, Ned selected what was the superior pepper.

Dear People of Greensboro. I am sorry you ALL HAVE COLDS NOW thanks to Handsy Ned. Love, June.

For some reason, we also had to get orange juice, I guess due to Ned's cough and cold, and I am surprised he didn't open and sample each container, but he did not. When we got up to check out, I said, "Is that juice leaking?" and call me Sherlock, but the part where the WHOLE CHECKOUT COUNTER WAS NOW! AU JUS! was kind of tipping me off.

My best friend in college was a French major, and the cafeteria lady in our dorm would ask her, "You want that with au jus?" and it was fun to watch her hives. She was au hives.

Anyway. I ran back to get different juice, then I went back to the checkout counter and just decided to buy it myself, because Ned was done and had paid for everything and I was just trying to save time.

"WHAT ARE YOU DOING!?" screeched Ned. Apparently he'd already paid for the bad one, and now we'd paid twice and dude, I still don't understand it all, I just know we had to go to the goddamn customer service counter and do all sorts of crap and then we walked away, forgetting the juice.

Yeah.

So, he suggests we make the bruschetta at my house. "Really? Cause, have you MET my kitchen?"

"You HAVE to have more stuff than I do," he said, I guess thinking that as a girl I'd have gathered, I don't know, forks and tongs and stuff.

We get there, and the first thing Ned wants is something called "a serrated knife."

????

Have you guys heard about this?

Then we actually find a cutting board, which, who knew? Someone must have bought one for me in the hopes I'd become a real girl, or maybe Marvin left it here, or it was the immaculate cutting board or something.

"Now we need a cookie sheet." Somewhere between the store and my house, Ned had become bilingual. "A what, now?"

I looked in the dark, cobwebby, never-visited cupboard under my counter, and lo and behold, there was this long flat sheet--have you guys heard about these?--and I pull it out and A HUGE DEAD COCKROACH CAME WITH IT!

"ACCCCKKKKKCCKKKKK!" I screeched, throwing the sheet to the floor.

It was at this point the dogs left the room.

Thank God manly Ned was there to clean up the bug carcass. I pranced around the kitchen flapping my hands and shuddering for awhile, then wondered, "Why out of all the kitchens in the world would a cockroach try this one? He must have been terribly disappointed. Did he have a sad expression when you threw him out?"

I refused to put the bread on that cookie sheet, even though Ned said washing it would remove all, you know, bug molecules from it. "We'll just use tin foil," I said, which I own because--yeah. I have no idea why I own tin foil.

"You have olive oil, right?" Ned sounded worried. "Pfft. Of COURSE I do. Tallulah gets a drizzle every day on her food."

Ned stopped with the sad small steak knife he was using to cut the bread. "You what?"

"It's good for their coat. I drizzle a little olive oil on their kibble."

Ned seemed to look at me for a long time. "We need to brush olive oil on the bread, front and back."

"...brush?" I have an absolutely beautiful Mason-Pearson brush I bought for $100 back when I had money. I wasn't sharing that with any bread. "God, even I have a brush," said Ned, growing increasingly fussy.

Finally we put the bread in the broiler to--yeah, I have no idea why we were putting bread in the broiler. All I know is I had to call my mother, because they said to "dice" the antique tomatoes, and we didn't know what the difference was between "dice" and "chop."

Then I'm afraid Ned and I might have started the kissing, because what's sexier than me in my element, there, in the kitchen, when--

"OH MY GOD!" I screeched, stampeding for the oven.

Say, you know what I'm sure broiling the bread was NOT supposed to do? It was not supposed to turn the bread black. All of it. Black.

I lifted the tin foil out of the broiler, and it was hot, so I said, "OHMYGOD!" again and flung all the bread all over the floor.

The dogs returned to the kitchen.

So that's about the time Ned and I returned to the store, but we were gonna have to go anyway because we'd somehow missed the part about the recipe calling for--have you guys heard about this?--red wine vinegar and/or lime juice.

We headed from the store to Ned's, because he was finally getting a visual on what "I don't cook" means when I say it, and things were going pretty well with the "serrated knife" and the "brushing" and so on, when we realized we'd left the pepper at my house. See, he assumed I wouldn't have stuff like SALT AND PEPPER, which I do, and I even have the band Salt-n-Pepa at my house from time to time, pushing it real good, but due to his supreme cautiousness and misguided ability to gauge what I would and would not have, Ned left his ONLY thing of pepper with me.

"How do you grind peppercorns?" I asked my mother, who was on the other line with AT&T to see about changing her number.

Finally, we had to GO DOWN TO THE PARTY, ask the old ladies with Christmas sweaters if we could borrow any of their pepper, and stampede back to Ned's to finish the fucking fucking fucking bruschetta.

And it was good!

We returned the pepper.

"They know not if it's dark outside or light."

Can you please tell me what I forgot to pack? Because you know I forgot some such nonsense, as I always do. Usually I get to my destination and I'm all, "Oh, I forgot pants!" Then I walk around like Donald Duck for the rest of my trip.

Or I'll bring the contacts that are in my EYES, which are disposable, but no OTHER contacts or any glasses, and the rest of the vacation is like an impressionist painting.

Anyway. Leaving for Michigan in an hour and a half. Things are UNDER CONTROL. Yessir. When I talked to Ned last he hadn't even CONSIDERED packing, so I feel like things are just as unchaotic at his house.

We saw the best movie the other day, she says incongruously, called Chicken with Plums, or Poulet aux Prunes, and who knew "plums" and "prunes" were interchangeable in France--those nutty French--and the point is at one point the actress takes off her glasses and when she does everything gets blurry. It was so much like real life. She must have the same prescription as me. Which is a sad, sick prescription. I have like 20/39394939493 vision.

But that is not my point. My point is I'm a disorganized packer. Am certain this shocks you.

By the way, the title of my post is exactly what Elton John was singing on my iTunes when I opened this page to start decomposing or whatever. Now Lou Reed is singing "I. Don't Know. Just where I'm going."

And you know, I don't. Glad Lou said something, because I have to print out directions in case my GPS up and dies like Mr. Bojangles. Which incidentally is not on my iTunes.

Okay, good. Here is a map of today's route. If you're in the area, stand on the freeway and wave like I'm OJ Simpson on the 405, will ya?

Here's day two. Basically here to Michigan is a long damn-ass way.

I've printed out those directions. How much would you like to bet that I forget them here at home?

"I HAVE NO PANTS!"

In case you're worried sick, Eddie Vedder is now singing, "All five horizons revolved around her sun. As the earth to the sun."

I LOVE this song. Love.

So I guess I should go do a sweep of the house to see if I'm forgetting bras or meds or oxygen, and also I should get the dogs to daycare, and y'all always ask me every time I go to mom's if the dogs are coming and why do you always forget my mother's dog is a cold-blooded murderer? I tell you this EVERY TIME and you never listen.

Remember when that jerky dog LEAPED out the back of the hatch and RIGHT ONTO puppy Tallulah's back? Now, I assure you, ASSURE YOU, Talu would kick that speckled dog's old fat ass at this point. All that'd be left are a few Gus bones and Talu with a toothpick in.004 seconds. But who wants to start a dog fight like we're the Michael Vick family?

"The day I stop's the day you change and fly away from me." The Cure. I swear I have songs from this decade on here somewhere.

Oh, but before I go, and I know you're sad disjointed June and her song call-outs is going. Are going. Whatev. Dick Whitman and I went to the movies last night, and yes I DO see a lot of movies. We saw The Sessions, which I guess is a true-ish story of a man who was paralyzed by polio and the sex surrogate he hires, who is played by Helen Hunt.

I mean, 1995 called. Remember when Helen Hunt was in everything including your bathroom? You'd walk in and she'd be checking out her enormous forehead. Her fivehead. Oh, hey, Helen.

Anyway, there she was last night, NAKED A LOT, and you can't help but like her. She looks like she'd done a lot of situps for that role, and who wouldn't? Well. I wouldn't. I'd just let you see the front butt.

You know when I didn't like Helen Hunt? Well. I didn't like her CHARACTER. Was in Castaway. What a BITCH. She's all in love with Tom Hanks, then FOUR YEARS LATER she has met someone, married, AND had a toddler. I mean, did she hump someone on the drive home from dropping Tom Hanks at the airport?

And when poor I-can-spear-fish Tom Hanks (and have I mentioned how useless I'd be on an island? Who'd panic and die on day one, over here? And I'd totally forget pants.) comes to Helen Hunt's house, he's all "Beautiful house" and she says, "Has a nice mortgage, too." Then he compliments her I'm-a-tramp-here's-my-toddler daughter, and Helen Hunt says just, "She's a handful."

OH SHUT UP. You have EVERYTHING, you big-foreheaded ho, and all you can do is complain. Irritating.

  

Oh, I love this song. In February, I went on I think it was my third date with Ned. We went to this tiny dark bar, and it was so cozy and outside was so blustery, and this song came on, and I was with a boy who had potential, and we were laughing and talking and I was so happy. I mean, as opposed to now. So totally over Ned. Which is why I'm schlepping him 299494949339 miles to meet my family.

I really want to see that HBO special on The Rolling Stones. Will one of you invite me over? I might be driving right past you today or tomorrow. Thanks.

OHMYGOD I still haven't told you what I wanted to tell you, about DW and me at the movies. Jesus. So, Dick W and I meet at the theater:

Here's me approaching DW in front of the theater, and who needs help? Is it me?

We were early, so we got treats and sat in the theater and talked. DW was telling a story and gingerly tugging this way and that to open his bag of Reece's Pieces, which you and I both know he was gonna have three of anyway, as he does. But seriously, he kept trying to rip the top, then pull, and HE WAS BUGGING ME.

"Give me that," I snapped. I pulled the bag as hard as I could and

BOOM!

every Reece's Piece IN THE UNIVERSE BURST up like a geyser, then landed down my shirt. It was amazing. It was like Old Faithful. You have never seen so many Reece's Pieces fly through the air in your life.

I gave DW the pieces that HADN'T landed in my bosoms, and I totally ate the ones that did. Hoo care, as Tallulah would say. Then throughout the movie, any time either of us shifted in our chair, you'd hear another candy roll down the aisle. We were totally the candy-coated clowns you call the sandman. Which is also not on my iTunes.

Okay, am going now. Will let you know if Ned and I detest each other by the end of today, or if that will happen AFTER he meets all my people and Gus tries to eat him.

XO,

June.

P.S. "I know a girl who reminds me of Cher. She's always changing the color of her hair." Oh this is SUCH a good song. LOVE. The Flaming Lips. In case you don't have this one on your iTunes. Which, why?

In which Ned returns. And June has a big week of naming her posts "In which."

Last night, my friend Hibiscus Wilson had a fundraiser for animals, and she invited me. Because you may not know this, but when it comes to animals, I am kind of a fan.

She had it at her downtown office, which is coincidentally where Ned lives, and did I mention Ned has been out of town till yesterday? And that this may have been making me bereft?

He wanted to work out after work, which, really? He's one of those people who enjoys working out, which, really? So the plan was he'd go home and work out like it's fun, then he'd call and I'd leave the fundraiser and go to his house.

At quarter to seven, he called me. "I'm still at work."

Can you imagine? After a hard week in Las Vegas pricing prostitutes, and getting to town at 2:30 a.m. night before last, then he had to go work at work? I mean, again, it's nothing like my grueling 25-hour workweek. Still.

"I'm exhausted, I have a headache, and I am leaving here soon."

Crap.

"Do you, you know, want to go home and go to bed? I can see you Friday." I said this like if we'd done that, I wouldn't have gone home and cried into my giant pillow. Which is only funny if you saw So I Married an Axe Murderer, which believe it or not is actually funny.

 

See. I put on a clip where he DOESN'T say the line about "He'll be crying himself to sleep tonight on his giant pillow" because that's the kind of efficient blogger I am.

So I offered the caveat that we could see each other another night, and he said, "Look. I feel awful. I am exhausted. But I'm GOING TO SEE YOU if it's the LAST THING I DO."

So, okay.

Hibiscus's office is on the second floor, right above that theater where Ned and I saw the scary play last week. As I was climbing the stairs, I ran into the woman who taught my running school a couple years ago. Remember when I did that? Anyway. we chatted about my plantar fasciitis, because I am a riveting conversationalist. She gave me some tips, and she mentioned she kept working out the whole time she had it. And, !.

Anyway, the office itself was fancy,

and there was cool art and stuff, and everyone was there eating and buying jewelry and so forth.

I stampeded to the food table.

"Well, hey, June!" It was Jo.

"Mrrphfmppmm!" I said. There were these crab cakes? And also huge strawberries with homemade whipped cream? And cheese? And did I mention the crab cakes? By the end of that thing I was walking sideways.

Do you know who's gonna like me quite a bit? Is Jo, with this picture of her eating god knows what.

The other good news is that Hibiscus had her dogs at the party.

Not that I am one of Hibiscus's dogs. But I WOULD be if she'd be willing to feed me those crab cakes every day. Are crab cakes fattening?

Finally, Ned called and was ready to (wait for it) go to dinner. Man, was I ever starved. Because I hadn't been over there shoving my astrological sign down my gullet all evening or anything. Nevertheless, Jo and I walked down to the restaurant to wait for Ned. She was just gonna say hi and watch us fornicate on the table for a minute before she left.

While we waited, we saw the Yes! Weekly magazine in which she is the cover story. Jo is selling her mom's 394949394924948493 dolls and it's quite the news story here in Greensboro, NC.

She took the magazine with her when she left, and it was after she'd gone I managed to get this:

The Official Ned is Sick of My Blog and Me Memorializing Every Second photo. Also the Ned Never Remembers His Reading Glasses photo. Also the Ned is Exhausted and in a Sparkling Mood photo.

I love that photo.

So that was my night. I hugged dogs and irked Ned.

Mission: Accomplished.

Best Crab Cake in Town

This weekend, I was telling Ned the fascinating story of how once I took Faithful Reader Laurie to the train station, and have I mentioned what riveting date I must be? And, because who could get enough of that story, I found it on my blog to send to him.

Turned out, it's a pretty boring post, but I found one from a few days later, in which I am telling you, the beleaguered reader, about how I was gonna plant a climbing rose. I wrote, "I have been waiting for months, because for the zone I live in, which is the danger zone and I've taken the highway to it, you plant your climbing roses in January."

Well. That line struck me as funny. I sat here, and I guffawed, and I chortled, and I giggled, and had to lie my head on the desk, and I wonder if possibly I could be the least-likable person alive on planet Earth.

And eventually I'll stop blogging about blogging, but I also wanted to mention that Ned and I were at Target yesterday.

The end.

No!

We were at Target, throwing down and partayying and raising the roof because the roof, the roof, the roof was on fire, and we saw a picture of Avril Lavigne while we were backing it up like we just didn't care. "I read your blog the other day," said Ned, "and what's Avril Lavigne done?"

Do you know it took me three hours to realize Ned had read my blog? He doesn't READ my blog. "Wait. Why were you reading my blog?" I asked, three hours later like we'd sat in silence all that time. Ned got a new smartphone this week, see, and he decided the first thing he wanted to look at at on it was my blog.

Now, see. Maybe that doesn't seem romantic to you, but that about killed me.

In other news, I pretty much spent the weekend eating, which combined with how I can't work out, does not at all mean that I am starting to look like Violet in Willie Wonka.

In case you wondered if Ooompa-Loompas disturb me, yes. Yes, they do.

On Saturday, I had tea with my friend The Other June, and we had 72 teensy sandwiches, and cookies, and scones with clotted cream, which is everyone's favorite heart-healthy treat.

We stopped at my favorite store that has a Kitler, and Hitler kitty refused to look at me. I have shown him approx. 79 times on this blog now, and maybe he's sick of all the recognition.

nein! hittlur kittee not look at gurl.

Also, I wore really good shoes, which complement my litter box. That clutch is from Dick Whitman. It's made from recycled candy wrappers, and yes it IS cool.

The first person to mention my tattoo, which I've now shown 45859394 times, gets you know what from my you know where.

If that weren't enough, later that evening, Ned and I went to an Italian restaurant, where we each got, you know, lots of Italian food. "Good Lord, why'd we eat so much?" I wondered.

"You wanna go to the dessert place?" asked Ned.

"Of course!"

Oompa, loompa, doopity doo.

Ned eats dessert to forget that there is an office poking into his head.

The dessert place we went to was decorated (is that the word? I guess "designed" is fancier) by my friend The Nester, and thank goodness I linked to her. Because she doesn't get nine hundred thousand two million and fourteen visitors a minute or anything. That group over there fascinated us. They were so...employable. We decided bible study. That's what they were doing. They certainly weren't gathering to buy drugs.

And because ooohh, can't you see, food is the drug for me, after eating everything possible, we decided to go for a long walk. Off a short pier. We just happened to stroll past the midcentury modern store where the cute owner may or may not dwell, and I am pleased to announce that Ned took this blurry picture, and IT'S MY PHONE, NOT ME.

Then yesterday we got up and ate more food.

Marty Martin and Kay decided we should all watch Grey Gardens, so we did it up like rich people with crustless sandwiches and scones and so forth.

And then also, they got dressed up and we didn't. Because I didn't know were were gonna. Besides, what could I fit into at this juncture?

Turns out? Everyone hated Grey Gardens except me, and they all got mad I didn't warn them, but what's to warn? I LOVE that movie!

After, Ned and I went to the Mellow Mushroom and ate.

So that sums up my weekend. Faithful Reader Carol sent me 900 more books, so I have MY entertainment all planned out. When I'm not reading, I thought I might rustle me up some treats. Little smackerel of something. This and that to nosh on.

Good gravy.

Did someone say "gravy"?

...friend turns 89. Also, hi, hi, pie!--Update with a news flash: June can't cook.

It's ...friend's birthday, so I got no time to talk to you, girl. Ima make the apple pie he requested.

A few of you said, "Why don't you videotape (veeedeotape) (my poor grandmother. You screw up ONE WORD...) yourself making pie," because this is like a wedding or graduation in that it is rare and celebratory. So in fact I will. I mean, you can't really veedeotape yourself MAKING something, but I will turn it on, much as I turn the world on with my smile, when I have finished various aspects of the pie-making.

Speaking of turned on, wait till you see part one of Making the Pie...

I.look.good.

Oh. Before I go, I wanted to show you something. Yesterday Edsel never took his ludicrous eyeballs off me.

I was a little bit tempted to pretend I was gonna off myself just to see what he'd do. Anyway, I am okay. You know. Ish.

Okay off to make pie.

XO,

Divorced June

UPDATE!!!! Here are the 9349595 videos I made of the pie-making. Am certain there's a way to splice these into one but have you met me? Plus I have to go cook the rest of the dinner. Holy cats.

 

 

 

 

 

Brent

For some reason ...friend and I seem to prefer Winston-Salem to Greensboro when it comes to finding fun things to do. They are half an hour apart, and pretty much the same size (actually, Greensboro's a little bigger), but Winston has more restaurants and galleries and fun stuff to do.

I think we've gone into approximately three galleries, ever. I act like we're such connoisseurs of the arts.

It's funner there, okay? Yes, I did just say "funner." Sue me. Take my gallery from me in the lawsuit.

Oh! And there's a good pretentious movie theater there, too. That's a big reason we go there a lot. Here there is a pretentious SECTION of our local movie theater, where they show good movies and they have biscotti and wine, and you're all, yeah whatever with your biscotti. Get me a popcorn. In Winston-Salem, the whole THEATER is pretentious. You don't have to walk past the big tent with the bouncy balls thing to get to pretense. And they serve wasabi peanuts. To which you're all, yeah with your wasbi peanuts. Get me a popcorn.

My POINT is, and I have reached the point so rapidly, as per usual, there is a restaurant/bar there we have been to a few times, and they have a 90-day club.

...friend. Seeming sort of pensive about 90-day club. And you wanna know what bugs me? Is the lack of hyphen in "90 day," up there.

The first time we were there, we were all, "What's the 90-day club, do you think?" I thought maybe if you got 90 days of sobriety, you'd get a free plate of meat. The first thing ...friend ever ordered there was just this giant plate of meat, I think it was supposed to be some kind of stew, and he's obsessed. "Remember that, just, big plate of meat I got the first time we came here?" As though I could think of anything else. As though he has not ordered an "Ask me about that big plate of meat" t-shirt and bumper sticker.

Finally we asked, and the waitress said if you go there for 90 days IN A ROW, they throw you a party and put your name on the wall in some kind of silver permanent marker.

That's it.

You drink for NINETY DAYS IN A ROW, and after your liver transplant, hey! Come back! See your name in marker!

I mean, you just have to order SOMETHING for 90 days. You don't have to drink. But what're the chances you won't?

...friend and I discussed driving to Winston for 90 days to be a member of this club. And the eventual drunk driving arrest and the cost and humiliation of that plus rehab, and we were totally in. "Oh, let's do it!"

Then we forgot.

So on Friday, there we were again, in W-S, at the restaurant with the good-for-you 90-day no hyphen club, and at this juncture we were seated near the list of names of people who were on their way to becoming members of the club. Courtney Love. Amy Winehouse. Dorothy Parker. I am hilarious. They each had a number after their name. Becky was on day 32. Otis was on day 80.

Otis. That was a little Andy Griffith humor, there, and what's better than that?

Anyway, there was a person there on the list named Brent. And he had a 539 after his name.

Again, my photography seminar is coming right up. Be sure to register.

Look. My iPhone doesn't zoom. I know YOURS does, because you have one from at least 1984. Mine does not. Really. It doesn't. What was I gonna do, step behind the BAR to show you Brent's number, up there?

I hear 500 of you going, yes. Yes, you were supposed to. What about our needs?

"Why would Brent have a 539?" I wondered. "He can't have...been here...ohmygod, 539 days in a row, can he?"

"What would that be? Almost two years," said ...friend, who can do math things.

Naturally we asked the waitress, who must be sick and tired of us and the obsession with 90 no hyphen club.

"Oh, Brent," she said, kind of smiling wanly. "He's trying to beat Taylor, our trivia guy, who was here 742 days in a row. Yeah, he's here. Every day."

"Does he...drink every day he's here?" I asked, all up in Brent.

"Oh, yeah. I think he always does."

Wow.

After she left, ...friend and I discussed Brent. Is his family worried about him? Does he have a job? Finally we placed a bet about how old Brent was. "I say Brent's 28, 30 at the most," said ...friend.

"Thirty is the borderline for this being pathetic," I agreed.

"He's a fun guy, everyone looks forward to when Brent gets in," said ...friend.

"Brent is 58, his wife left him, and this is his only social life," I said. We couldn't WAIT for that beleaguered waitress to return.

"How old is Brent?" We attacked her the moment she was near us.

"Mmmmm, late 30s/early 40s. He's a bartender somewhere else."

Yeah. First of all, that made it so neither of us won the bet, and it also made me worry for Brent. "I'm coming here at my lunch hour and getting the whole staff to help me do an intervention for Brent," I said, because I have to fix everything.

"Why would the staff want him to stop drinking? They'd lose his business. ...But you know who'd help you with that intervention? Taylor the trivia guy," said ...friend.

So that's my story. Worried sick about Brent, who by tomorrow I will have found, sobered up, and gotten gainful employment for. I will also be dangling prepositions just everywhere.

I gotta go. To my temporary job. Because my own life is in need of no fixing whatsoever at.